Honest Solitude

I've always loved images of people lost in thought. Sometimes the most expressive images of people are only found when they are alone. When a person is alone, they are free to let down their guard and be vulnerable. For images like this, I prefer to use longer focal length lenses. Longer focal lengths have a way of compressing foreground and background distances. In other words, it makes the subject and their environment feel closer together; it also makes the viewer feel like they are close to the subject and focusing intently on them. I really love the immersive quality this creates for the viewer. You can really "get into" these kinds of images and just stare at them for long periods of time.

Cinematic Styling

This image probably looks like a frame grab from a movie to most people. There's a reason behind that. I originally began my career working as a cinematographer, or Director of Photography (DP) shooting films, TV commercials, and some VIP interviews for TIME Magazine. The lighting and framing techniques that became my bread and butter have clearly bled over into my photography! Most photographers do not move beyond standard photographic formats for printing reasons. Personally, I love the look of the 1.85 and especially 2.35 film aspect ratios. Human vision is wide and narrow. I feel like an image is more immersive for the viewer if it's wide screen, especially when blown up to a large viewing size.

Image Breakdown

I actually shot this image back in the summer of 2013 in a cramped space. I really didn't have enough room to work with, just enough to frame her face. The original image was shot in portrait, everything you see on the left side of the frame was shot later on it's own so I could extend the frame. The final image is a composite of 3 images total: the original shot, a second take for better hair(the hair hanging behind her), and two curtain photos. One of the curtain shots was only used to create a mask so I could create a realistic looking out of focus foreground curtain blowing in a breeze. The other curtain was used to fill the left side of the frame.